Hello

22 February 2019

Here's how it works: The Recent Releases chart brings together critical reaction to new albums from more than 50 sources worldwide. It's updated daily. Albums qualify with 5 reviews, and drop out after 6 weeks into the longer timespan charts.

Huge thanks to the many many hundreds of you who sent us your
top five albums of the year.

Without further ado, here's the top 50. And below we offer our
thoughts on what it all means.

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575 Vampire Weekend Modern Vampires Of The
City

395 The National Trouble Will Find Me

375 Arcade Fire Reflektor

352 Arctic Monkeys AM

310 Kanye West Yeezus

271 Daft Punk Random Access Memories

245 Burial Truant / Rough Sleeper

244 Deafheaven Sunbather

185 My Bloody Valentine m b v

173 John Grant Pale Green Ghosts

164 Chvrches The Bones Of What You
Believe

146 Jon Hopkins Immunity

144 Laura Marling Once I Was An Eagle

138 Julia Holter Loud City Song

130 Queens Of The Stone Age ...Like
Clockwork

111 Foxygen We Are The 21st Century
Ambassadors

110 Kurt Vile Wakin On A Pretty Daze

107 James Blake Overgrown

86 Darkside Psychic

85 Haim Days Are Gone

81 Disclosure Settle

80 Parquet Courts Light Up Gold

78 Savages Silence Yourself

77 Mikal Cronin MCI

75 The Knife Shaking The Habitual

72 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Push Away The
Sky

71 The Future Of The Left How To Stop Your
Brain In An Accident

65 Boards Of Canada Tomorrow's Harvest

64 Janelle Monae The Electric Lady

63 Unknown Mortal Orchestra II

61 El-P And KillerMike Run
the Jewels

59 Phosphorescent Muchacho

57 These New Puritans Field of Reeds

56 David Bowie The Next Day

55 Foals Holy Fire

55 John Murray The Graceless Age

55 Matthew E White Big Inner

54 Sigur Ros Kveikur

51 Caitlin Rose The Stand-In

50 Earl Sweatshirt Doris

50 Prefab Sprout Crimson / Red

48 Tegan and Sara Heartthrob

47 The Flaming Lips The Terror

46 Local Natives Hummingbird

45 Steve Gunn Time Off

45 Villagers {Awayland}

43 Eleanor Friedberger Personal Record

42 Frightened Rabbit Pedestrian Verse

40 Goldfrap Tales of Us

39 Justin Timberlake The 20/20
Experience

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Rather neatly, our readers' choices for the best albums of
2013 correspond directly with our sources' end of year poll of
polls at the two extremes: Vampire Weekend are
No.1 in both and Justin Timberlake No.50 in
both.

However the accord between the two lists at the very top is not
exactly 100% affinity. While in the critics' rankings, Vampire
Weekend's Modern Vampires Of The City was neck and neck with
Kanye West's Yeezus right up until the last votes,
in the readers' view it is streets ahead of the competition, which
chiefly came from The National and Arcade
Fire whereas West has merely achieved a respectable 5th
spot.

Inbetween No.1 and No.50, while there are plenty of familiar
names, there are also many intriguing variances.

One of the biggest surprises in the critics' ratings judging from
ADM user comments was the lowly position achieved by
Deafheaven's Sunbather (our all-time No.4
highest-rated album) while it attracted enough love from readers to
see it finish at No.8.

Burial's Truant / Rough Sleeper is one place
above Deafheaven but didn't figure at all in the critics' rankings,
but this is easily explained by the fact that most review sites and
publications do not include EPs.

Two of the most striking deviations occur with David
Bowie and Disclosure, the former
finishing at No.7 in the critics' list but only placed at No.34 by
users, the latter the critics' No.10 and the users' No.21.
Perennial critics' favourite Nick Cave also fared
rather less spectacularly in the users' list than in the
critics'.

Conversely, there is more cheer for Foxygen to be
had from the readers' verdict than from reviewers' opinion: their
2nd album struggled to 41st position in the poll of polls but users
put it at a relatively lofty 16.

Similarly, Future Of The Left's How to Stop Your
Brain in an Accident, a very recent ADM chart topper, was probably
released too late to be given any consideration at all by reviewers
but is enjoyed sufficiently by readers to see it at No.27.

As a general conclusion though, with the notable exception of the
Deafheaven album the overall make-up of the two top 20s shows a
much greater degree of confluence than they did last year. Does
this means that the "professional" music lovers have been more
influential in 2013? We're sure they'd like to think so. We're sure
our users would disagree.